Google Street View Trekker ⨉ Yamanashi Prefecture

by F. Agustimahir

I think nowadays almost everyone knows about Google Street View. One of its features can be used to see the actual street condition using Google Maps.

Me and Google Trekker

At first, Google Street View was only available for roads accessible by car. But thanks to the latest developments, it is now also available for roads not accessible by car and for seeing inside buildings. 

Google Street View Trekker is one of the 360 degree cameras being used by Google to take pictures from places that cannot be accessed by car. The Yamanashi Prefecture Tourism Department Nature Tourism Division is cooperating with Google to take a picture with Trekker on various Yamanashi tourist sites for 2 months. Over these 2 months, staff from other Divisions within the Tourism Department take turns to help take pictures as on the schedule.

Assembling Google Trekker

On March 9^th 2017, I went with two other colleagues from the Yamanashi Prefecture Tourism Department Nature Tourism Division to Shindoutoge, a.k.a. Shindou Mountain in Fuefuki City to take pictures at the site.

Route we took.

The route we took can be seen using this link. Actually a blue color link is accessible by car and already has data on Google Street View, but on that day the road was still covered by snow so it would have been dangerous to travel by car. 

First point. As seen from car parking place.

The route was our car parking site → 新道峠第二展望台(Shindoutouge Daini Tenboudai / Mount Shindou 2^nd Viewing spot) → 新道峠第一展望台 (Shindoutouge Daiichi Tenboudai / Mount Shindou 1^st Viewing spot). The line on the route link is seems a little odd, because it looks like we need to go down to the road first, then climb it again to the 1^st Viewing spot. But in reality, we only need to take the path from 2^nd viewing spot to 1^st viewing spot.

Maybe after the pictures are processed, there will be a new line connecting these 3 places. Let’s see the results later!

There is one silly thing. When I was told that the place we would visit that day was still covered in snow, I thought it wouldn’t be so thick. But it was quite thick, everybody! And both of my colleagues wore winter boots which were waterproof, but I only wore my running shoes… So you can imagine that almost all my shoe was sinking into the snow, and becoming wet. Cold. Slippery. OH well… 😜

The road covered by snow like this.

So wet.

I brought the Trekker half the way, starting from the first point until the last blue dot on the map, and from that spot until we came back to the car my colleague brought it. I refused to bring the Trekker down, because with the shoes I was wearing, it would have been dangerous to carry a roughly 25 kg thing over a slippery surface. We needed about 1 hour to walk from the car parking site to 1^st Viewing spot, and about 40 minutes to come back down.

Carrying Trekker 

Camera activating point.

Me on Mount Shindou 1^st Viewing spot.

Traveling down to the first point.
#Looking down to find a dimes. 😎

When we were going back to the office, we saw two deer passing by just in front of our car. We almost hit them! What are the chances? But this is one of many things that I like about Japan; that the wildlife lives together with the people. 

What an interesting and happy experience. I was thinking to recommend the same thing for tourist sites in Indonesia, but unfortunately, after I checked the explanation from Google on this link, I found out that the Trekker service is still only available in a few countries, and still not available for Indonesia.

Maybe that is enough for sharing my experience today. See you on the next article.

Bye.

Mount Fuji and Kawaguchi Lake seen from the Mount Shindou 1^st Viewing spot